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This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

There’s a whole corner of the Marvel Universe devoted to mutants with psychic abilities. It is a niche corner, seemingly invisible to the rest of the heroes, particular those without the X-gene, until the point one of them threatens to upend everything. Usually, this has to do with their connection to the Phoenix force, which is simultaneously the source of their most terrifying power and their most humbling weakness. It’s complicated, it’s abstract, it’s supernatural and extraterrestrial at the same time. In short, it’s not easy to understand. In Jean Grey 9, writer Dennis Hopeless and artist Victor Ibáñez illustrate just how much special knowledge is required to deal with Young Jean Grey and that ominous Phoenix. Continue reading →

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

The general thesis of Fu Jitsu appears to be: “comics are weird, but resonate with us anyway.” Or perhaps the resonance is because of the weirdness. Writer Jai Nitz and artist Wesley St. Claire never really imply causation in one direction or another, but with issue 3 of Fu Jitsu, they do make a strong case for the last correlation between the two qualities throughout comic book history. Yup: issue one was about the diegetic past, issue two was about a diegetic present, and issue three is about the meta-past. Continue reading →

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

Drew made a case for the first issue of Fu Jitsu being the height of absurdity. He wasn’t wrong: Fu, and his attendant mythology are an unwieldy mess of ancient Chinese mysticism, Biblical appropriation, and nuclear-fueled alternate history. Fu’s connection to the “present day” was largely superficial — he enjoys football and Whataburger. But issue 2 rams the historical absurdism into modern — even future — absurdism, trading in some of the least-likely real-life threats from 2017 and beyond. Continue reading →

This article will contain SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

I just killed James Dean and disarmed a bomb from the future.

Fu Jitsu, Fu Jitsu 1

My own interpretation of the solicit for Fu Jitsu 1 was “if Forrest Gump was a genius and immortal” — it’s an absurd premise, but one that could be fun. Turns out this issue is actually several times more absurd than I expected, but it embraces that absurdity so enthusiastically, I can’t help but love it. Continue reading →